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THE HONGKONG WEEKLY PRESS AND
'are tô đay no further. “Of course a member of the Board who is also an official is placed in rather a difficult position in continually bam- Bill, but if one has to be something more than mering at the Government to try and pass this
But though we are well aware of the nous increase that has taken place in the production of China, so great indeed the import of foreign drug into the ceased to-morrow it would hardly noticed except by a comparatively few smokers in the Treaty Ports who prefer the favour of the Indian product, yet we are to believe the statement made by a pondent of our Shanghai morning contemporary who writes from Chaotung in Adggan. After stating that the mission- aries resident, in, that city are constantly called in to give assistance in cases of opfum poisoning, he says that in the first half of the current year there were exactly fifty cases of the kind and that in one family of seven no less than five have died from the effects of the drug self-administered, ment on the 16th Septemb
lay figure on this Board one has to satisfy one's conscience at any rate and do the best one can to alleviate what is an extremely undes- irable condition in the city at the present time. I beg to move that the Standing Orders be suspended in order to enable me to move a re- solution on the subject.
He the
then goes on to say that a few years ago gathered some statistics from several in different parts of China, and came
to the conclusion, based on these figures, that in the whole Celestial Empire up less than half a million persons every year attempt to take their lives by swal opium. This is a tremendous num- lozing opium. ber, even in a population of 300,000,000, and we take the liberty of doubting its accuracy. It is true that the Chinese as a race are prone to self-slaughter, and will frequently take poison-preferably opium because it is readily obtainable on the very slenderest provocation. A slight dis- appointment, a small loss, a harem dispute, are often sufficient cause to make the son or daughter of Han resolve to shuffle off this mortal coil, never found too attractive in the sordid conditions of existence in the so-called but misnamed Flowery Land. But half a million suicides per annum Hardly, we think, even in China.
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HONGKỤNG SANITARY BOARD.
Dr. CLARK seconded and the motion was carried:
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|Beptember 30, 1899.
| not require volunteer aid except in cance
grave emergency.
Each of the drainage inspectors will require $12 à month. a Chinese foreman at a salary of $10, rising to
"We also recommend that the clerical staff of the Department should be strengthened by placing the temporary Portuguese clerk who was appointed in April 1895 on the permanent staff, and by the addition of another Chinese clerk at a salary of $40 a month."
In his report to the sub-committee Dr. Clark recommends the appointment of two additional inspectors to devote the whole of their time to The VICE-PRESIDENT-I beg to move that night visitations and prosecutions, on 'the we address an urgent appeal to His Excel-ground that the services of two inspectors are lenoy the Governor to take the earliest opport- necessary if any systematic attempt is to be unity to introduce into the Legislative Council made to deal with the question of overcrowding. a Bill relating to insanitary properties as final. He recommends the employment of an inspec ly amended by us and forwarded to the Govern- tor to devote the whole of his time to the ad
ministration of the Food and Drugs Ordinance, with the view to the protection of the com- munity from such diseases as arise from adulterated or decomposed food. He also re- commends the appointment of one or more in- spectors to devote the whole of their time to the abatement of drainage nuisances, adding,
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Mr. OSBORNE (after a pause)--I will second more than a stereotyped answer. that. Let us hope we shall have something
The motion was carried.
APPOINTMENT OF A SELECT COMMITTEE,
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On the motion of the PRESIDENT, seconded by the Hon. R. D. ORMSBY, it was decided :--- That the Medical Officer of Health and the Secretary be appointed a Select Committee, 11 of 1895, for the purpose of granting permits under the provisions of section 3 of Ordinance for the construction and maintenance of cock lofts and cubieles, and for the occupation of basements in accordance with sections 6, 7, and 8 of Ordinance 15 of 1894 and the Bye-laws made under that Ordinance."
THE APPLICATION FROM THE ROYAL
ARTILLERY MESS 'HOL'SE.
The application from the Royal Artillery Mess House as to two urinals was granted on certain conditions.
THE STAFF OF THE SANITARY DEPARTMENT.
Dr. Atkinson and Dr. Clark, the Select Com. mittee for the consideration of the proposed increase to the staff of the Sanitary Department, submitted a report from which we extract the following:
"We are of opinion that an assistant Medical Officer of Health should be obtained from The usual fortnightly meeting of the Hong-England at as early a date as practicable. He kong Sanitary Board was held on Thursday Afternoon... The President (Dr. J. M. Atkinson, Principal Civil Medical Officer) occupied the chair, and there were also present the Vice- President
(the Hon. F. H. May, Captain Su perintendant of Police), the Hon. R. D. Ormsby (Director of Public Works), Mr. E. Osborne, Dr. Clark (Medical Officer of Health), and Mr. G. W. Duggan (Secretary).
93911
THE INSANITAET PROPERTIES BILL. The VICE-PRESIDENT Before proceeding ith the orders of the day I should like to ask whether any communication has been received “From the Government în respect to the Inkani- fary Properties Bill, which was remitted to us aruotly a fortnight ago for further considera- tion on one section of the Bill, that referring to the height of buildings. We understood from the Director of Public Works, who has the advantage over us in being a member of the Trocutive Connell, that if we adopted certain concessions fi'r respect to that
that section in fact HWF withdrew the provision for restricting the height of buildings, of houses erected on land already purchased from the Crown the Bill would probably pass as it stood, and being extremely anxious that the Bill "should pass, even without the provision re. garding the height of buildings, we made a very considerable modification of that section, which we hoped would meet the opponents of the Bill"Bát ds far as we cati see there is still considerable delay before us. We know, or we karesiressonato? believe, that His Excellency Governor is very anxious to legislate view to improving the sanitary con- of the town, and we can only infer that there must be some secret'influence at work-at fart I Won't say some secret influence, but some 1ininüénöe with which we are unacquainted, which booätidually: blooks this Bill The Insanitary Properties Commission was appointed in 1896. It took the best part of two years to faish its report. We spent three months' axtremely hard work in the hot season last summer, reporting on that report, and here we
should possess a diploma in public health, should be under 30 years of age, appointed to the Sanit- ary Department on the understanding that in cases of emergency his services must be at the disposal of the Medical Department of the colony. He should receive a salary of $2,400 per annum, rising by annual increments of $300 to $3,600 per annum, together with quarters or a house allowance of $720 per annum and conveyance allowance of $288 per annum.
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"We also recommend the appointment of three additional first-class inspectors and two addi- tional second-class inspectors of nuisances, whose services will be mainly employed in connection with q over-orowding, house-drainage, and the prevention of food adulteration, and as reasons of this increase of staff we would give in addition to those mentioned by the Medical Officer of Health in bis report to the sub-com- mittee under date of July 21 the facts:→
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"There is little doubt that at no very distant date at least three such inspectors will be re- quired; but it is possible that at first two would class of work which is most important to the suffice, although I must point out that this is a preservation of health, and that we are as yet by no means sure that bubonic plague does not bear an intimate relationship to the sewage. contaminated soil."
The PRESIDENT-In moving the adoption of the report of the Select Committee which proposes an increase in the staff of this depart- now endemic in the colony, and this being the ment, I think we may take it that plague is
case it behoves this Board to take every step that we can in order to improve the sanitary condition of the colony. The Committee has fully considered the staff at the disposal of the department and in this report certain recom. mendations have been made. They have re- commended the appointment of an Assistant Medical Officer of Health and three addi- tional first-class inspectors and two addition- al second-class inspectors of nuisances. The " services of these additional first-class inspec- tors will be made use of in connection with overcrowding, house drainage, and the pre- vention of food adulteration. This may ap pear to be a large increase of the staff, but we must remember that practically now we have to deal with these constantly recurring epidemics without any assistance from the police. At any rate this year it has been so, and as far as we can see in future years it will probably be the same. For this reason we think the staff must be considerably increased if we are to do our duty as a Board. I move-that this report be adopted by the Board and be forwarded to the Colonial Secretary for the information of the Government.
Dr. CLARK, in seconding, said There is one point, however, that must not be sight of, and that is, that neither this nay, nor ten times this staff, will ever be able to cope with the filth, the squalor, and the "(1) That bubonic plague may now be disease that lies perdu in the many thousand said to have become endemic in the colony, and tenement houses of this city until they are will therefore require the greatest vigilance on provided with a reasonable amount of light and the part of the sanitary staff to hold it in of fresh air. A few weeks ago à Committee of check, and རྣག་ ཨིན་རྩྭ།,-་;
this Board visited some twenty houses in Health Districts 4 and 5 and reported as follows: "The designer or builder seems to have had but one object in view, namely, to contrive how many human beings could be crammed into and exist on the space," and yet these houses are no worse than the great majority of the buildings in the city, and the Board at least will not be surprised to learn that one of the first appli- cations I had from each of the Volunteers who kindly assisted in the house to house visitation during the month of July was for bull's eyo lanterns, without which they said a proper inspection of these miserable tenements was im- possible. No doubt if the Government were to appoint half-a-dozen Medical Officers of Health and half-a-dozen Police Magistrates a very large percentage of the houses of the city could legally be closed under section 23 of the Public Health Ordinance in the space of a few months, but surely then the last state of this city would be worse than the first, for the remaining
(2) That during the five years 1894-1898 the Sanitary Board received most valuable as- sistance from the Police Department in com- batting the various outbreaks of bubonic plague. Thus during 1898 they had the exclusive services of 13 European police officers during a period of two months, while in 1896 equally valuable assistance was rendered, but during the present year it has been found quite impossible by the Hon. Captain Superintendent of Police to spare any European police for this work, and we are given to understand that we cannot count upon the assistance of the police in future, and other reliable, European assistance has not been obtainable, with the exception of the few volunteers who kindly came forward for a few weeks at what proved to be the close of the epidemic. The assistance of the volun- teors is also not to be reckoned on in future, as the feeling among the community is that the Government ought to provide a staff that should
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